The Official Publication of the
Flathead Nation online

Lake County school history
recounted in new book

By Lailani Upham

A photo from the chapter, "District No. 28 Forms at Arlee." The photo
is taken of the school in Arlee by Indian Agent and Truant Officer Mr.
Branson, who was known for many of the photographs taken of the
schoolhouses throughout the Flathead Reservation and Lake County during
the 1930's. Caption reads: "The Brown Building of Arlee." [1935
Flathead Reservation Report, Branson] Arlee-03. The brown building had
an addition constructed in the front of the building years later, and
still stands today along highway 93 in Arlee as a community center.
(Copyright 2009 by Joyce Decker Wegner)

PABLO — Some might think the history of Lake
County schools began in little country school buildings, which is
somewhat the case, but the most accurate account of education in the
area began in the stories of how the Salish, Kootenai and Pend
d’Oreille people taught their children to live in this area, according
to a new book coming out this week, called “Lake County School History,
Volume I, Once in Missoula County: One Large District Becomes Many,” by
the Lake County Country School Historians and Joyce Decker Wegner,
retired Lake County Superintendent of Schools.

The Lake County Country School Historians is a
membership of 105 members who consistently attended meetings over the
years to conduct the research, photos and writing of the book. The
group is now known as the Flathead Reservation Area Historical Society.

In the forward, Dr. Harry W. Fritz, a professor of
the Department of History at the University of Montana states. “Why is
Lake County special? Well, the county was not created until 1923.
Before that, it was part of southern Flathead county and northern
Missoula county. But county boundaries are not particularly important
to this study. Lake County is the home of almost the entire
Salish/Kootenai (Flathead) Indian Reservation. Lake County School
History is also a history of the Indian education in Montana.”

In the book the story begins at the creation of
the Flathead Reservation in 1855, in the Council Grove Treaty
negotiation with the Salish, Kootenai, and Pend d’Oreille people and
the United States government. After the signing of the treaty, tribal
people were located in the Bitterroot Valley but did not completely
relocate until around 1891.

Between these years the book describes the
education systems developed for Indian children, from the catholic
missions to government agency schools operating on the reservation to
far off government boarding schools to finally public schools.

(R to L) Joyce Decker Wegner, retired Lake County Superintendent of
Schools and Gale Decker, Lake County Superintendent of Schools hold a
manuscript dated back to 1923 of school officials and teachers.
(Lailani Upham photo)

Prior to this Dr. Fritz points out that the
educational practices of Native peoples were mainly training for boys
and carrying on the oral stories of each tribe.

Decker-Wegner states the uniqueness that Flathead
Reservation has to other Indian reservations, and that is the fact that
the land was allotted and opened up to white settlers in 1910. “Very
quickly, the whites, with their local governments and economics, became
the majority on the Indian land. This book is our story of how our
schools impacted mixed communities.”

The scene shifts with the coming of the white
settlers, Fritz states. “The Jesuits taught Indian children at the St.
Ignatius mission as early at 1858. Government agency schools operated
on the Flathead Reservation at Jocko, Ronan, Polson, and Camas Prairie.
The Northern Pacific Railroad secured a contested right-of-way across
the southern edge of the Reservation, and built the towns of Arlee,
Ravalli, and Jocko (later Dixon).”

The first mission school was in 1856 and by 1858,
the St. Ignatius Jesuits established the Industrial Boys School, the
first resident school for Indians in the entire Northwest.

According to Decker-Wegner, by 1864-65, the
Montana Territorial Legislature created The Common School Act, where
the tribes and the U.S. government signed the treaty with government
responsibilities to provide education to the people of the Flathead
Indian Reservation. “It is a story of imposed American assimilation,
often at the expense of the traditional culture of Indians. Treaty
education responsibilities were partially carried out first through the
missions then in agency schools, and finally through the public
schools,” she states.

Arlee School District 28 was the first public
school district established in 1897 on the Flathead Reservation,
according to Dr. Fritz. He states, “Most of the early schools were
racially mixed, and the record of accommodation seem good. But the
United States, insisting full assimilation, created off-reservation
boarding schools for Indian students. Those most affecting CSK children
were Carlisle in Pennsylvania, Haskell Institute of Kansas and Chemawa
in Oregon.”

In the book, Johnny Arlee, CSKT tribal member and
now an elder shared his story of attending Chemawa Indian School, a
school his father had attended as well. Arlee started off at the
Ursuline School from first grade to age 12, then he went on to Arlee
Elementary, a public school. “It was worse than the boarding school, I
thought. It was strict, I don’t know. I guess I had it made at the
Ursuline’s, I was a leader. The Arlee School was right close to home,
but going to the public school was different. The teachers...I did have
some bad feelings with teachers. I don’t know if it was prejudice or
what it was. I felt that other Indian students felt it too...that we
were treated funny. Maybe that’s why I went off to Chemawa. I think
somebody suggested that for me, maybe Mr. Branson the truant officer.

In the book, Mr. Branson totes Arlee and two other
girls, Delores Courville and Rose Redhorn to Chemawa. “That was a
really nice trip. I was scared of him at first,” Arlee said. The trip
ended up being a pleasant memory for Arlee. His account at the far-off
boarding school was of mischievousness and eventually he was sent back
to the rez, back to Arlee public school. However, this time around it
was the High School, and liked it there, he states.

The story of the opening of reservation to white
settlers, many of them being second-generation immigrants poured into a
land that was without public education. Many of the communities pitched
together to build their own schools every four miles throughout the
reservation, according to Decker-Wegner. “It is a story of how the
people worked through two counties, Missoula and Flathead, to create
school districts that quickly merged the education of the settlers’
children and tribal children.”

Decker-Wegner gives many conflicting recollections
of the students on both sides. “These stories reflect our diversity,
our intermingling and intermarriage, and our struggles to educate our
children to succeed in this place we all love and call home.”

The book is a collection of 13 years of research
that will be a two-volume collection will be available for purchase as
early as Monday, October 25 at the Lake County Courthouse form 10 am to
4 pm. The price of the book is $29.95 each or $25 if more than one is
purchased. The proceeds will go to printing the second volume.

Dr. Fritz concluded in his forward that, “The
volumes are a masterpiece or local lore and memory. They are important
not just as nostalgia, but because they tell critical stories of race,
cultural, and education vital to the larger history of Montana.”